


The Rising Water

by night_reveals



Series: Face Forward, Walk Blind [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood, Danger, Derek POV, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experience, Pack Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 09:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_reveals/pseuds/night_reveals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You want me to track the Sheriff,” summarizes Derek, the likelihood of the Sheriff’s death already hanging over his head like a sword.</p><p>Stiles turns to him, face set and eyes sharp. “I want you to find my <i>dad</i>.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rising Water

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a Derek POV series; all the stories stand on their own. 
> 
> I've had this particular one 3/4 written since June 2012 and finally decided to wrap it up. Thanks to eternalsojourn for betaing <3

The call comes in at 3:18 in the morning. Derek knows the exact time because he is awake, prowling what little remains of his house, searching for signs of hunters. Since he became Alpha, he has even less need for sleep than before.

Derek looks down at his phone and frowns at it as it vibrates, the caller ID popping up a name that makes his lip curl. 

“I’m coming over. Get dressed and outside,” says the voice on the line, panicked. The call goes silent.

Ten minutes later and Stiles is as good as his word, his Jeep tearing up Derek’s driveway so loudly that even if it had been a still night, he would have awoken. 

Without stopping the engine, Stiles yells out, “I know you can hear me, Derek. Get in the car!”

There is only a moment that Derek considers doing otherwise. The shaky tone encroaching on Stiles’ voice is relatively familiar to Derek, considering all the life-and-death situations they have been thrown into together, and he can’t help his curiosity mixing with a rush of adrenaline. 

He jogs out into the rain.

“Sorry for waking you.” In the driver’s seat, Stiles spares Derek only a glance, his fingers tight on the steering wheel of his Jeep, bones grinding together in his hands. Derek clenches his jaw at the noise.

“What are you here for?” he asks, shaking the water off as well as he can before hoisting himself into the Jeep .

Stiles takes a hitched breath and pushes the gas pedal down, hard. “My dad. He was out in Blue Ridge doing a training program for the local officers and on the way back home, the creek under that – that bridge that was supposed to be replaced two years ago – it flooded its banks and washed away the bridge. My dad and Keith are missing.”

“They were driving?”

“No, they were hitchhiking, genius.” Stiles’ face twists, ugly, and he notches the windshield wiper speed up. Derek darts a hand out, claws growing swiftly and puncturing Stiles’ jacket. Instead of the normal fear, Stiles offers him anger, his eyes refusing to stay on Derek’s face for long. Finally, he acknowledges, “Yes, they were driving.”

“What else do you know?”

“It happened at two in the morning, but they just figured it out twenty minutes ago. Somebody called in the bridge and their patrol car, sticking out of the river.” Stiles hits the steering wheel with an open palm, forcing his Jeep into the other empty lane for a moment –

“Stiles,” Derek tightens his hold in warning, his claws just scraping skin. A car crash will hardly hurt Derek, but a human boy’s skin would shred against asphalt. “Why didn’t you call Scott?”

Stiles wipes rainwater from his face, smoothing it over his prickly head. “I did. He didn’t answer his phone,” he says, muttering. “Probably forgot it when he snuck over to Allison’s earlier.”

“I can call Isaac,” offers Derek, hand on his phone already, the cheap plastic slick against his skin.

Stiles ignores the words. He probably knows that they are moot. Isaac rarely comes to Derek’s summons anymore, and when he does he stinks of Scott. Erica and Boyd haven’t answered their phones in a week. Jackson is long gone, far enough away that even the connection between Alpha and Beta gives Derek no information. The less said about Peter, the better.

Derek must be Stiles’ last and only choice for this.

“They’re calling the dog teams out to track the scent, but they were in Blue Ridge too, so best bet says it’s another hour or two till they arrive at the river to even begin,” Stiles is saying. “A team canvassed the car and no one is in it. He has to have washed up somewhere – be wandering around the woods – anything.”

“You want me to track the Sheriff,” summarizes Derek, the likelihood of the Sheriff’s death already hanging over his head like a sword.

Stiles turns to him, face set and eyes sharp. “I want you to find my _dad_.”

The drive is silent for the next twenty minutes.

The Jeep fishtails over the slick asphalt when Stiles skids to a stop next to the collapsed bridge, throwing open his door and jumping from his seat into a nearby ditch without looking. From the passenger seat, Derek shoves the Jeep into first gear and pulls the brake before heading out after Stiles, rain immediately pelting them once more.

“Over there.” Stiles points across the bridge, to where the flashing white and red lights of an emergency team barely make it through the drowning night. “They pulled the patrol car from that side. The water busted the windows and they think dad and Keith have been washed downstream along with the bridge.”

“‘They’?”

“Police scanner,” answers Stiles in clarification, his eyes already searching the rising waterline. The creek surges against its muddy banks, the water angry, swirling in dangerous eddies before rushing downstream faster than Derek has ever seen. There is no way that any human, much less a hurt one, could have survived falling in. There is no way that Derek will be able to find anything when he can barely smell himself, his nose filled with rain and ozone and mud. There is no way that Derek can tell Stiles any of this.

In the dark, hidden by bushes and trees, Stiles turns to Derek.

“Can you find him?” Stiles asks, mouth a red, bitten mess and face blanched bone-white. “It’s raining, I know it’ll be hard, I don’t even know if – if you can smell, or do your wolfy thing. But can you find him?”

With one pull of his lungs, all Derek gets is water up his nose. The woods are sprawling and dense, difficult to navigate in the best of weather and seemingly impossible now. Even a seasoned tracker, which Derek isn’t, would have trouble.

Still, Derek promises, “I’ll try.”

“Okay.” The sigh that leaves Stiles is shaky, visible in the rise and fall of his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Surely he can’t be serious? “No. You’re staying here.”

“Fuck that, Der – ” Stiles’ complaint is bitten off when Derek shoves him several feet back, pressing him against his own Jeep.

“Can you keep up with a wolf?” Derek lets his eyes glow red, the color muted. He does not have enough pack to make them burn bright.

“I can try,” spits Stiles, hands gripping Derek’s wrists, trying to pull them off of his shirt. Derek ignores the attempts, pinning Stiles down and tilting Stiles’ head to the side, exposing his neck and collarbone. The lashing water falls on Stiles’ skin. “Dude,” starts Stiles, but Derek ignores that too, leaning in to rub his nose over Stiles’ neck, his face into the dip of Stiles’ bones, breathing in: hormones that make Derek want to sneeze, the salty edge of terror that sets him on edge, medicine a sour overlay. Buried under it all is Stiles’ true scent, the one he shares with his father, thrumming through his blood and gathering muddied but strong at his skin. 

Derek steps back, freeing the now limp body before him.

“I’ll try,” he promises again as he sheds clothes, forcing them into a shocked Stiles’ arms, his shirt then his jeans then his boxers and shoes. In the next heartbeat he is wolf, the air clearer, even the rain not enough to make him feel unwelcome in this, his environment. He takes off into the underbrush, a black smudge of dangerous night.

The ground sucks at his paws when he gets too close to the creek, and eventually he gives up on trekking along its edge, contenting himself with sniffing and eyeing it from a few dozen feet away. The birds that would normally be out at this time of night are hiding in nests, the insects doing the same on the ground. The storm has made the woods strangely silent, the constant falling rain and random cracks of lightning the only sounds Derek can hear.

He runs faster, ducking under fallen tree limbs and jumping over small boulders that rolled down from some far-off hill. At the top of one boulder he pauses, swivelling his ears around to listen to the unhelpful surroundings, his lolling tongue catching sweet rain.

It’s then he hears branches breaking from a few hundred feet back, a muttered swear, his own name cursed out breathlessly into the forest.

Stiles.

Anger fills Derek, giving him momentary purpose as he heads back the way he came to ward Stiles off, to send him back to safety.

Derek cannot find the Sheriff; he already knows this. He cannot be responsible for Stiles’ death, too.

“Coach makes us run suicides all the time,” says Stiles on the end of a pant, stumbling into the tiny clearing.  Derek’s basketball shorts dangle from his hand. “Told you I could keep up.”

Derek growls at that, lip lifting to show off his long, knife-sharp incisors.

Stiles wipes at his eyes, clearing them of rain for a second. The forest floor squelches under his shoes when he steps past Derek into the trees, and Derek nips at his ankles, catching a piece of jean material in his teeth. Stiles kicks at his face and Derek has to drop to the ground to avoid it.

“I’m calling your bluff this time,” Stiles says, eyebrows drawn down and fists curled at his side. “So lead the way, because if you want to stop me you’re going to have to kill me.” He kicks at Derek again, but this time Derek expects it and he easily jumps back on all fours, snarling out of instinct.

Stiles takes advantage of the distance that Derek has put between them to leap up onto the boulder, sliding down the other side. Derek hears when his feet hit the ground, when he starts running again, into the woods alone, unprotected. A single, sharp howl is the only indulgence Derek allows himself before he too jumps the boulder and takes off after Stiles, dogging his awkward steps.

It takes longer with Stiles next to him, and after crossing a half-mile through the abating rain, Derek starts to sprint ahead, listening to Stiles’ fumbling behind him. There is no sign of anything unusual that Derek can sense.

Until the blood.

The scent comes on a western wind blowing across the creek, hitting Derek square on the muzzle along with a few raindrops, blanketing him in metallic tang. Derek whines at it, turning towards the water. It takes him a moment to figure out exactly which direction to go, and by the time he has, Stiles is beside him, wheezing.

“What, what is it, why’d you stop?” he asks, unable to smell the blood. But how can he not, when there is so much of it, enough that it’s oppressive even through the rain and the heavy forest mould. Bounding forward, Derek lands lightly on the other side of a copse of bushes, getting a look at the source.

A few feet into the surging creek, the mangled body of a man hangs in midair, a thick metal beam jutting through his chest like a metal pin. The beam, once part of the bridge, is keeping the water from dragging the flesh away. Pieces of tattered, dark brown uniform that Derek would recognize anywhere cling to the pallid skin. Thankfully – or not – the man has been impaled with his back to them, his face turned into the water, a perpetual drowning.

With one more sniff of the air, Derek knows that it is not the Sheriff, the blood too sweet, too young, too not-Stiles.

Stiles does not know this – cannot know this.

Even over the rain, Derek hears Stiles’ heart stutter in his chest, and the muffled, pained intake of breath. Stiles runs to the bank of the creek, feet catching on a covered tree root and sending him stumbling, mud flying behind him. Derek follows, nipping at Stiles’ jeans again, trying to make Stiles see that the body is too thin to be who Stiles fears, but Stiles shouts and kicks at Derek, fevered. The blow barely rattles him, and Stiles falls onto the soft, crumbling ground, only a foot away from the creek’s edge.

“No – ” Stiles brings a hand to his face to push rainwater and tears away. “ – Dad,” he moans out, collapsing onto the ground, legs going akimbo out from him.

As a rule, when Derek is wolf, he is strong. He is capable, and fast, and decisive. He runs with purpose, with nothing clouding his mind. He is Derek, but better, distilled into something like purity, if Derek could fool himself into thinking he’ll ever be pure again. It is a rare moment that Derek accepts that he must let his human aspect take hold, but now is one of those moments.

Next to Stiles, he shifts.

He touches Stiles’ shoulder, keeping a cautious hold there. In his mouth his teeth still feel too big, the transformation from wolf leaving him mostly wordless, his brain still stuck on growling and whining. In lieu of speaking, he shakes Stiles, then points to the body.

“Loo – ,” he says thickly. “Look.”

It takes a moment for Stiles to do as he’s commanded, but eventually his gaze rises to the body again, taking it in completely at last. The half-moon is still high in the sky, and Derek supposes even human eyes can see the outline of the man, his uniform doing nothing to hide his unfamiliar lankiness. Blood runs over the man’s bulbous joints at his elbows, his jacket ripped away by the current, completely unlike the Sheriff’s thick, steady arms.

A shocked, relieved sigh comes from beside Derek. He ignores it.

“Go,” he manages to say, tugging at Stiles’ hoodie to pull him up. He nods towards the forest. “Go.”

Nodding dumbly, Stiles gets up. He’s still clutching Derek’s shorts in his hand, but before he can offer them, Derek shifts back, immediately more at home. Four points of contact with the earth have always steadied him more than two.

They continue on, slower than before. Whatever adrenaline Stiles was running on earlier must have burned off with the shock of seeing Keith dangling from a metal beam, for now he can’t seem to help tripping over everything. It’s the third time he’s fallen, his shoe catching on slate blue rock and his knees smacking into the sodden ground, that Derek whirls around and shifts to human form.

“What,” starts Stiles, stumbling backwards as he rises, looking frantically around the forest for what prompted the shift.

Derek strides forward and throws Stiles against a nearby tree trunk. Stiles’ back connects with the bark harder than Derek expected. Growling, he tries to make his order to _Stay_ come through his eyes.

Instead of cowering, Stiles glares back. “Back to your favorite hobby, huh?” Wiggling, he tries to escape, a tiny minnow that Derek has to claw into to hold. Stiles whimpers low in his throat at the sudden pain and Derek retracts his claws, his message to _pay attention_ delivered.

Taking a deep breath, Derek tries to speak. “You stay,” is all that comes out.

“‘You stay’?” mocks Stiles, pushing at Derek’s bare shoulders. “How ‘bout not? Because I won’t, not here, being pinned by – ” Stiles looks wildly down, and for the first time Derek remembers his nudity “ – by a naked dude while my dad _dies alone in the forest_. I should have just come alone, obviously, I should never have called you at all.”

Inside of his mouth, Derek rolls his tongue once, feeling it finally return to some resemblance of humanity.

“No, Stiles. Stay. Here.” At the words Stiles sets his jaw, angry light kindling in his eyes. Derek has to find a way to stamp it out, before Stiles gets himself killed on Derek’s watch. “I can run faster and farther than you, but I can’t concentrate on finding anyone with you beside me. Do you want your father to die because you were too stubborn to accept the help you asked for?”

The fight gathering in Stiles’ eyes extinguishes itself then, dropping back into him in degrees as Derek keeps up his stare. When Derek lets him go, Stiles collapses against the tree, sliding down its bark. Derek follows, getting on his knees before Stiles.

“If – ” says Stiles, eyes glazed over when he looks up at Derek, taking in Derek’s nakedness and the mud covering his body without a reaction, “ – if you find his body. Bring it back.”

Around them, the first few insects are beginning to chirp, the rain having slowed to a stop during their argument. Without the rain to mute his senses, soon Derek will be able to smell any rotting flesh from a mile away, given the right winds. The forest is coming back to life, if nothing else.

“I will.”

Two miles later, sprinting through the forest listening for moans or circling carrion birds, Derek hears it: a low, familiar howl that sends shivers through his blood. The howl is an announcement of prey, and it comes from a wolf that Derek never thought to hear again. It has been weeks since Peter disappeared, vanishing as suddenly as Gerard had, but Derek should have known that his uncle wouldn’t leave Beacon Hills for long. 

Changing course, Derek heads into the forest and away from the creek, making a line for Peter’s yowling. He is on four legs and not two, so he should be stronger, but for the first time Derek feels sick as _wolf_. He does not want to fight Peter for control of the pack. He does not want to carry the Sheriff’s broken body back to his broken son. He does not want to fail, again.

The howling stops, and Derek doubles down on his lope, forcing himself into a sprint.

He bursts into the tiny clearing, black fur and muscle parting the bushes easily. He lands squarely in front of Peter, who has shifted to human form and is ignoring Derek’s growling to coo down at the Sheriff, whose head is cradled by twisted tree roots.

In wolf, Derek growls again, snarling as he pads closer.

“Ah ah ah,” says Peter, flicking out a claw that he then lays across the Sheriff’s neck, where a light heartbeat still resides. It changes everything. “Don’t come any nearer, dear nephew. Shift so we can chat like civilized beasts.”

With one more snap of his teeth in warning, Derek does. Peter knows the feeling of wolftongue, and he takes advantage, getting in what he wishes to say before Derek can override him.

“You came. I knew you would, since you still think that helping teenagers will endear them to you. But don’t you remember being like them? So easily moulded, eager if not ready for your first brush with life? So uncaring of all around you?” As he speaks, Peter’s voice gets darker, taking on the rage that lived hidden underneath his insanity for years, and that is only now coming to light with his newfound lucidity. “So selfish.”

So, then, Peter has put together the pieces and figured out more of Derek’s role in their family’s death. It’s almost a relief.

“Yes,” agrees Derek. “But I didn’t know.” About Kate, or hunters, or hate.

“That’s the only excuse you can muster, after all this time?” says Peter, eyebrows lifting in a false display of sympathy. Derek tries to edge forward, but Peter pastes an unfriendly smile onto his face and brings his claw closer to the Sheriff’s neck. “Tsk tsk. Stay.”

“It is,” Derek says, answering the question, knowing that the truth will resonate in his voice. “I was a dumb kid.”

Cocking his head, Peter taps his clawed hand against the Sheriff’s trachea. “It’s true you were never the brightest boy. Laura was much more gifted, in every sense of the word. I’ll never forgive myself for her death.”

It hurts to hear the belief in Peter’s voice when he talks of Laura. It’s truth, or Peter believes it is. Derek’s lip lifts in his human aspect’s tepid version of a snarl. “That makes two of us.”

When Peter’s hand closes firmly around the frail, human neck of Stiles’ dad, Derek feels his heart leap and his growl sputter out. 

“You will,” corrects Peter, softly into the night. “You’ll forgive me. You’ll welcome me back as pack. The Alphas are coming, Derek, and you need numbers that you don’t have. Who stands with you now? Isaac is a harmless puppy that’s still cutting its teeth, probably gnawing your furniture, and don’t think I can’t sense that your other betas aren’t nearby, either. That’s what you get for biting the unworthy.” Peter rubs a thumb down the Sheriff’s cheek. “Scott fears and despises you, still, angry like the teenager he is. And little Stiles is a human boy.” Peter smiles predatorily at that, eyes flickering a pale gold in the night. “A fierce, resourceful boy, to be sure, but a boy nonetheless.”

“Don’t talk about him.” The command is automatic, unthinking, and when Derek is done delivering it, he can’t fathom why he said anything. In response, Peter smiles even wider. This Peter is less playful, more like the man Derek once knew; Peter has no one to perform for, here, no betas to impress or charm away from Derek. They can be candid.

“Perhaps you’re not as witless as I thought, if you value him.” Peter glances at the body cradled in his hands, one nail trailing over the Sheriff’s lined face. “If only I had been in my right mind that night...”

“Give me the Sheriff,” commands Derek. He doesn’t know much of human limits or their health, but surely any left out in this rain for long would need medical attention. The heartbeat Derek can hear beats steadily but is thready, each contraction less than Derek expects for a full-grown man. 

“Do you think it will be that easy?” Peter smiles but his shoulders rise like hackles, a dichotomy that Derek can’t unravel. “You give Stiles his father back, and Stiles gives you Pack in return? Even he knows that you are not worthy of trust.”

“I came here because I was asked. No other reason.” Derek wonders what Peter hears. Is it the truth?

“Still such a kid inside, aren’t you?” 

“Give me the Sheriff.” Each word is bitten off into the air, the surrounding wildlife stilling for moments as Derek’s vibrating, deep voice heads into the forest’s leaves. Peter cocks his head with another smirk and draws a claw over the Sheriff’s cheek, cutting it, waiting for something. “I can't forgive you,” says Derek. He tells himself he’s not bending to Peter’s pressure; he’s merely being pragmatic. “But I can welcome you. You are Pack.” 

The decree hangs in the air for a moment, victory flashing in Peter’s eyes, and then Derek is jumping forward, biting at Peter’s shoulder. Blood spurts from Peter to flow thick down Derek’s neck, the red mixing with the brown and grey mud spattered all over him, his teeth lodged in Peter’s muscle, cutting deeper with his uncle’s every shudder. It takes a full minute for submission to creep into Peter’s body, coming first to his lower half, working its way up Peter’s spine to his face and his clenched fists. He goes limp at last in Derek’s jaws, pinned to the ground, his face half in the mud and his hands loosely opened to cradle fallen leaves. 

The thrill of a new, confirmed member of his pack runs through Derek, but he lets Peter up as soon as the submission is complete. 

Moaning, Peter turns onto his back, shoving himself up on his shaking arms. He raises a hand to the wound at his shoulder, the skin barely beginning to heal. It will not scar, but it will take days to close.

“Had to go old-school on me? Couldn’t leave it at the words?” 

Derek huffs, wiping blood from his mouth. He feels dirty. 

“You’re just lucky I’m not wearing my nice clothes, or else we’d have even more problems.” 

The line isn’t even worth an eyeroll. "Leave,” commands Derek, pointing into the woods. “And don’t talk about any of this.”

“Of course not,” Peter agrees, stumbling to his feet. “Wouldn’t want Stiles to know who really found his father, would we?” 

Before Derek can answer, Peter is gone, disappeared into the lightening gloom. 

A moan from the Sheriff brings Derek back to his senses, and he listens closely to the human body before him. Heartbeat sluggish, skin too cold, fingers trembling. The body is chilled, and has lost blood from some wound that Derek can easily smell. But if Derek stays here and curls around him for warmth, he will lose more blood, and Derek does not know how much a human body has to give. If he starts running with the Sheriff now, it will be a half-hour before he reaches Stiles’ Jeep. That will have to be good enough.

Or there is a third option.

Once Derek has thought it he cannot unthink it. Peter’s words echo in his head, about his choices so far being _unworthy_. The teeth in his jaw lengthen as he stares down at the Sheriff, watching the human man struggle against death. If the Sheriff were a wolf he would be strong, upright, safe. Stiles would not have to worry about his dad, Derek would have a pack member with life experience and community sway...and Stiles and Scott would follow their father into Derek’s pack, however begrudgingly. Even if he died, Derek could obscure it – throw the body in the river so that it would bloat and wash up on a shore far away.

He is less ashamed of the notion than he should be.

Shaking his head to dislodge his thoughts and Peter’s words, Derek leans down and takes the Sheriff carefully in his arms, tearing the radio from the man’s uniform as he does. The way back is a straight shot, but Derek must make a detour – Stiles still waits in a clearing.

The trees are not nearly as unforgiving to Derek when he is in human form and weighed down with another’s body. They scratch at him and the Sheriff both, lines of pink running down Derek’s face, sharp leaves hitting him. He curls a hand over the Sheriff’s vulnerable eyes and keeps running. Speed is more important that small cuts, right now.

The clearing emerges from the trees suddenly, a meadow with no use. Underneath a maple sits Stiles, palms over his face, shoulders hitching with movement. At the sounds of Derek’s arrival, his head whips up.

“Dad!” Stiles voice is hoarse, like he’s been crying, and his eyes are wide with hope. 

“Alive,” Derek says shortly, nodding forward. “But not for long. We need to go.”

Stiles runs over to touch his dad’s brow, face crumpling only a moment before he pulls back and glances at Derek. "Your face," he says, eyes slipping over where Peter's blood gushed like a fount all over Derek, dripping to his neck. 

"There's no time to explain now," Derek replies, shifting the Sheriff in his grasp. 

Stiles' eyes narrow, but if there is one thing that can focus him like nothing else, it is his father in danger. Mud flies behind him as he starts sprinting towards the road, not bothering to look back at Derek – trusting that he will follow. 

Derek swallows down whatever he feels and leaps after, clearing the boulders and felled bushes easily. Though he cannot see Stiles, he tracks the boy using his ears, listening for anything strange. Stiles does not fall even once.

They make it to the Jeep, Derek first, panting, and Stiles right behind him, ripping open the car door to help Derek put the Sheriff in. On the other side of the river, the emergency lights and police cars are long gone save a single vehicle and orange tape.

With his father safely ensconced, Stiles begins to shake, keys to the Jeep rattling in his hand. 

“I’ll drive,” Derek says, seizing them.

“You – ” Stiles looks like he’s going to fight for a second but then nods, climbing in the back with his dad. He looks up and down Derek’s body, then throws him his sodden shorts. “You can’t drive naked.”

Two seconds later Derek is half-dressed and taking them away from the creek, ears tuned to the thready heartbeat in the back. No traffic blocks their way so early in the morning, and Derek tries to breathe in-and-out with a strong rhythm, as if he can keep the body in the back alive with his own lungs.

They make it.

To Derek the hospital looks dark and unwelcoming at daybreak, but Stiles sighs as it comes into view, his hand carding through his dad’s sandy hair. They park and Derek jumps out, grabbing his shoes. 

“Don’t tell them about my involvement,” he commands, opening Stiles’ door as he does. 

Stiles looks torn between thanking Derek for the thoughtfulness or rolling his eyes, and ends up huffing in exasperation. “Duh.”

Derek nods and flexes his bare feet, readying himself for the jog home.

“Derek!”

Spinning back, Derek glares at Stiles, noting the pale skin and reddened eyes, Stiles’ arms around his father – 

“Thank you,” Stiles says, soft compared to the way he’d shouted Derek’s name. Then, “Guess this means next time I’ll be saving your furry ass.”

Derek shakes his head and turns. Alone, he runs into the dawn.


End file.
